In the early 90’s I was a deckhand on a small (152’) expedition passenger ship in the Sea of Cortez. As a deckhand we did a little bit of everything. We scrubbed decks, hauled garbage, washed windows, lowered and raised the anchor, helped tie the ship up at docks, chipped rust, and of course, painted. It was hard physical labor with weird work hours. We worked 10 hours on, 10 hours off for 10 days in a row, then got a 10 hour shift off. This meant each day shifted each day. We had a 20 hour day while the rest of the world had 24 hour day.
I was a deckhand for about 17 months between December 1990 and March 1994. Toward the end of my deckhand and days I worked with a couple of others who had been deckhands as long or longer as I had.
Our ship was white with a blue trim stripe the length of the ship. When you’ve hauled as many bags of oozing garbage, washed as many windows and scrubbed as many decks as we had the mind starts to wander in those 10 on/10 off shifts.
Late one night one of my fellow deckhands and I were talking about how much we thought the blue color was superior to the white. I’m not sure how it took off from there, but that night we painted over some white in a discreet corner with blue. We concocted a plan to do this little by little each night and see how much of the ship we could paint blue before anyone noticed.
We talked about leaving our mark and a mostly blue ship would be our legacy. When we returned in the future with our kids, we could point out a blue corner and say “See that, your Daddy painted that.”
Sadly, a super observant Chief Mate noticed the slowly changing bulkhead (wall) on the Fantail (back part of the ship). She got mad, made a good assessment of the culprits and told us in no uncertain terms to paint it white again.
As it turned out, we were a couple of decades ahead of our time. The ships are now that same color blue.
Not to be discouraged we still searched for ways to leave our legacy. When I became Chief Mate, I encouraged my deckhands to do something outstanding to leave their mark; their legacy. Nothing so ridiculously hair-brained such as slowly re-coloring a 152’ ship hoping no one noticed. But I think it should be a goal of all of us to leave a positive legacy and make the world a little better place. It’s something I think about and want to teach my girls to be intentional about.
There have been many people over the past 55 years that have left a mark on me. My parents, great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, all have left their mark on me.
There have been many beyond my immediate and extended family who have left a legacy with me. Those who immediately come to mind are my High School World History teacher, Mrs. Roach; my college history professor, Dr. Crowley; my current boss, Captain Jones and countless college friends.
There are others, who at the time didn’t feel like they were leaving a legacy imprinted on me. In the past couple of years, I’ve noticed an attitude of determination in myself. An “I won’t quit and you can’t make me.” Also, a “I’ll work as hard and as many hours as it takes, no matter how tired I am.”
One day while driving my old truck in to work it occurred to me who had left this legacy and it made me completely re-examine that time in my life.
In 7th and 8th grade I tried out for the Jr. High basketball team and was cut each time. In 9th grade I decided enough was enough and I couldn’t take another blow. One day my friend James Powell who sat next to me in band convinced me to come out for the 9th grade team because they didn’t have enough players and there was no way I’d get cut.
So, I took a chance and got on the team with great hope. We were a terrible team. In practice we ran sprints, like all the time. I’ve probably never been in as good a shape since. I ran every sprint as hard as I could no matter how I felt. I worked as hard as everyone else in practice, but never got into a game once until they created a “B” team. Even then it was just a few minutes the entire season.
To be fair, I was not very good and had never played any organized basketball. But, no matter, I believed if I ran, worked and practiced as hard, or harder than everyone else I would eventually catch the coach’s eye and get into the games.
Instead, I didn’t play. There also apparently not enough uniforms to go around so I was given a uniform that was likely worn by the team in the late 50’s or early 60’s (think pre-Gilligan Island). That is no exaggeration. It was completely different from everyone else on the team and I stuck out like a sore thumb. At games that our team manager was unable to attend (about half of them) coach had to find someone to keep the “books” which meant sitting at the scorer’s table with the guy who ran the clock and a parent of manager from the other team.
In the locker room before those games with no manager, coach would call out the names of the starting five followed by “Stevens, books”. So there I would sit, center court for the entire game in a uniform that hadn’t seen the light of day since before the day I was born in 1963.
After games and practices, we would put our sweaty suits on a giant safety pin stamped with our locker number and toss them into a basket to be washed that night. The next day it would be hanging in our locker. One day I came into the locker room and my uniform wasn’t in my locker. I searched high and low but to no avail. I went in to coach’s office and told him. That earned me a couple of swats with a big paddle as some sort of punishment for I don’t know what.
The next day I came into the locker room and there was my uniform! I went into coach’s office again to give him the good news.
His response, “You want me to give you swats for finding it?”
I kid you not. Those were his exact words. I remember them to this day.
Every sprint after that I burned with anger and turned it into determination. I ran harder, practiced harder and continually running through my mind was “You cannot make me quit. I will not quit. There’s no way you can make me give up.” With each practice and game it just felt like, in my 14 year-old mind that he just didn’t want to deal with me and did everything he could to get me to quit without telling me to “get lost”.
I never did quit or stop giving it everything I had. I also rarely got to play and then only for a few minutes. Now to that day in the truck, it hit me who had left that legacy on me of determination and working hard regardless; my horrible 9th grade coach.
As much as I despised him, I realized how many hard situations I had gotten through because of the mark (some literal) he had left on me, much to my surprise.
Ironically enough, that is part of the legacy I want to eave with my girls. Be determined. Don’t give up. Everything you do, give it your all.
More importantly I want to leave a legacy of love for Christ and walking as He walked in a difficult world. That is the true thing that will help you through trials as we have learned the last 9 months.
The lesson for me is that not everyone who leaves a positive legacy that shapes who you are will not look like a person you think would. What I do with that lesson is still a little lost on me.
One thing I know is that I should not underestimate how God can use ANYONE to shape you in a way for His good. Not a terrible coach, supervisor, a painful break-up, etc.
Legacies. Leave you mark. Leave a better world than you were born into. As Lisha and I continue to walk this path we are on, we desire to leave a better place for our girls. Keeping our eyes focused on God is the mark we want to leave.